A strong contingent of the Metro’s black swimmers will be missing from the annual SPAR Redhouse River Mile this year. In previous years, the Metro’s Learn to Swim program has funded up to 100 kids to attend this annual swimming event, which is Africa’s oldest open water swimming race. This year the Metro has advised the organisers that due to there being no water in the township pools, the kids will not be attending.
“The city has some really good swimmers from Motherwell and Kwazakhele who this year have been unable to train as no water has been put into the township pools. Despite this, the kids continue to compete in our Ocean Racing Series and are doing very well,” says event organiser Mike Zoetmulder of Zports. “Swimming is a very popular activity for kids and they are extremely disappointed at missing the River Mile as they aspire to collect the race medal and t-shirt each year.”
Two of the Learn to Swim programs top Motherwell swimmers, Qhamani Moni and Mkhululi Heka continue to do well in the Ocean Racing Series 1km swim despite not being able to train during the week. Both usually finish in the top half of the 1km field and were hoping to improve on their River Mile performance of last year.
Zoetmulder is actively trying to secure corporate funding to ensure that at least 50 of the swimmers are able to attend the River Mile which takes place at Sundays River on Sunday 27th February and which has already attracted over 700 entries and is fast approaching the cut-off of 1,000 swimmers.
“Time is running out, but we’re hoping that we’ll find a local company keen to support the kids to ensure that they can attend this year’s race.” said an optimistic Zoetmulder.
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